Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Shaun is an auricula, a primrose, and I turn to a book I picked up recently, The Gardeners' Enquire Within, Jubilee Souvenir 1930, Editor A J Macself, (Editor of Amateur Gardening), for details of this Florists' Flower, for that is what an auricula is, a Florists' Flower. This term really has no connection with the…
Continue reading ➞ Meet Shaun…
A rather lovely bulbous plant, Muscari latifolium, where the lati or latus means wide, as in the 'wide leaved grape hyacinth' - it develops just the one wide leaf, quite tulip like in fact. Happiest in full sun though tolerant of some light shade and do keep it from being wet in winter. The fertile,…
Continue reading ➞ Muscari latifolium (grape hyacinth)
A very recent post has an elegant bud of this particular Magnolia, Black Tulip, just beginning to break, but with little sign that it would develop into these great blossoms, many inches across. Time to get back to RHS Wisley, where this photograph was taken in 2010, for an update on this particular specimen.
A curious time just now, with daffodils flowering brightly next to equally blooming Lavender (the dark arts of the nursery trade), primroses next to summer darlings such as the osteospermum with spoon-shaped petals. Not long ago these South African daisies were an unusual feature but they are a common bedding plant today from spring onwards…
Continue reading ➞ Beautifully mad – Osteospermum Whirligig
Magnolia Black Tulip, a hybrid raised by Mark Jury in New Zealand and released in 1998. It was selected out of 150 seedlings that were grown from a cross between Magnolia Vulcan and Magnolia Iolanthe. The colour of the flower is an exceptionally dark ruby-red, with a large goblet shaped blossom. The foliage is dark…
Continue reading ➞ Magnolia Black Tulip
A very beautiful ranunculus, quite gorgeous. One for a container display. Make it sophisticated with black grass, ophiopogon Nigrescens maybe, or brighten things up with other ranunculus, neon oranges and pinks.
Hailing from Northern Turkey, Fritillaria michaelovskyi is a bulbous perennial with delightful, nodding, dark purple-brown flowers with distinctive yellow tipped tepals. There is a diamond pattern to the flowers, though apparent only when looking inside these little bells, with the light shining through. In matters of scale, the tepals are between 20-30mm long, on stems…
Continue reading ➞ Fritillaria michaelovskyi
Such an extravagant place, Petersham Nurseries, a short walk across the water meadows from the River Thames, near Richmond. Items of immense beauty, artisan crafts and heights of sheer luxury - cheek by jowl with plunder from the skips of the Mediterranean and all conjured up into a heady mix of bohemian rapture. It never…
Continue reading ➞ Petersham Nurseries – Pure escapism
On this first day of spring, with a gusty southerly wind blowing along the Thames, an opportunity to call into Ham House & Gardens. We've been neighbours since moving to Teddington in 2000 and the gardens are a familiar haunt - but it was only last year that the interiors were explored. They are a…
Continue reading ➞ Ham House & Gardens
The Teddington Gardener 